


Idle Hands

by bowties_Scarves_and_Plaid



Series: Solitude is Creativity's Best Friend [4]
Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Fluff, Team Bonding, bored mac is a dangerous mac
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:28:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23305339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bowties_Scarves_and_Plaid/pseuds/bowties_Scarves_and_Plaid
Summary: The team is stuck in a house together for a reallyyyyy long stake-out and Mac goes a little stir crazy. To keep him from destroying every apliance in the house, Riley, Desi, and Bozer try to help keep him engaged.
Series: Solitude is Creativity's Best Friend [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1670578
Comments: 9
Kudos: 42





	Idle Hands

The sound of something heavy hitting the floor above them caused the three agents to look up at the ceiling.

“Not it,” Riley and Desi said simultaneously. 

“Dang,” Bozer said with a sigh. “I’ll do it, but we are playing Euchre and Mac gets to be my partner.”

“We’ll see,” Desi said and made a shooing motion with her hands. Bozer sighed again and started up the stairs. He made his way into the bedroom that Mac had claimed as his own.

“Whatcha doing Mac?” Bozer asked, making his way into the room and sitting on Mac's bed. The remnants of what had been Mac’s space heater were spread across the entirety of his room. There was a large piece of it on the floor next to him, which Bozer assumed was the source of the noise they’d all heard.

“My heater was making a noise,” Mac said without looking up.

“A noise? What kind of noise?”

“This really annoying rattling noise.”

“So you decided to dissect it as punishment?” Bozer said, trying for a joke.

“I’m trying to fix it,” Mac said seriously. Bozer sighed and went over to sit on the floor next to Mac. Mac looked at him in surprise, probably wondering why Bozer hadn’t left after getting his answer.

“This is really killing you, isn’t it?” Bozer asked. Mac hesitated for a moment, and then he set his wrench down with a loud clatter and leaned back on his hands.

“It’s killing me, Boze. Just sitting here, waiting for some guy to come home when we don’t know when he’s going to come home or if he ever will come home. And we can’t even work other aspects of the case because we have literally no leads other than this Jenkins guy. I’m going a little stir-crazy here,” Mac admitted.

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” Bozer said and this time MacGyver smiled at his joke. They’d been on a stakeout for two weeks and about three days ago, Mac had really started getting antsy. He’d pretty much disassembled and reassembled every appliance into the place, as well as made a few new inventions that they were all a little too scared to actually try. They all had to be ready to move as soon the second Jenkins pulled into his driveway, so there was nothing to be done about the fact that they were all just hanging around doing nothing until he arrived.

“There’s only so much T.V. I can binge-watch, Boze. I just feel so useless. There’s a huge shipment of guns coming into the U.S. and we don’t know when or where or how much. All we have is the name Jenkins and this address. What if the shipment has already come and gone while we’re just sitting here?”

“You know Riley and the people back at the Phoenix are trying to find out more information, but in the meantime, this is our best lead,” Bozer said. He completely understood Mac’s frustration, but Mac being on edge put the rest of the team on edge and that was only making a bad situation worse.

“I know, I know. Stakeouts are just the worst, man,” Mac said with a sigh.

“Hey, at least we have a whole house this time instead of a van or worse a tiny car,” Bozer said, ever looking for the bright side.

“True, I could last four, maybe five days tops in a car,” Mac said with a laugh.

“And it probably would be able to fly by the end of the stakeout,” Bozer replied.

“If we stay here much longer, I might have to find a way to make this house fly,” Mac said and Bozer didn’t doubt that his friend would find a way, or more likely wreck the place trying. A bored MacGyver was dangerous.

“C’mon, the girls want to play Euchre and we can’t play with three people,” Bozer said, standing up and offering Mac his hand. “You can fix your rattling heater later.”

“Actually,” Mac said as he accepted the help up. “You can play Euchre with three people, you just take out the 9s and-”

“Maybe, but it’s not as fun,” Bozer interrupted his friend.

“True,” Mac laughed as he followed Bozer downstairs and allowed himself to be distracted from his boredom by a few games of cards with his team.

***Two Days Later***

Desi stifled a yawn as she trudged up the stairs to her room. She was used to her sleep schedule being all kinds of crazy due to missions and time changes, but this stakeout was extra messing with her circadian rhythms. She was either sleeping way too much or way too little, depending on her watch shift. Riley had set up sensors and alarms that were supposed to alert everyone when Jenkins arrived home, but they’d all agreed to leave nothing to chance, so there was always someone on watch.

Desi had just gotten off of a grueling 4-hour watch. Riley and Bozer had provided some entertainment while they cooked dinner. Riley’s new source of entertainment was questioning every ingredient Bozer put in his meals and offering up better suggestions. Bozer took his cooking quite seriously and did not appreciate being questioned.

After dinner, they’d all disappeared. Riley had gone to take a shower, Bozer had gone to take a nap before he took over her watch, and MacGyver had hurried off as soon as the meal had ended to continue to tinker with whatever he’d been building before dinner.

The last two hours of her shift had been incredibly boring and it had taken all of Desi’s training not to fall asleep. It was only 8 pm now, but after staring at an unmoving computer screen for so long, it felt like it was 2 am.

Desi was looking forward to collapsing into bed and listening to her audiobook for a while. She flipped on her lightswitch and was greeted by a bright flash, a loud pop, and a cry of pain.

“Mac?” Desi said in confusion, recognizing the sound of his voice. She turned on the flashlight on her phone and found Mac standing underneath her light fixture, cradling his left hand. “Come here,” She said, pulling him out into the hallway where it was light. She put her phone away and gently tugged his arm so she could get a better look at his hand. There was a cut running along his palm, it didn’t look too deep, but it was bleeding.

“Ouch,” was Mac’s response.

“What happened?” Riley came out into the hallway, “Mac are you bleeding?”

“Just a bit, Riley could you grab the first aid kit for me?” Desi said. Riley hurried away and Desi led Mac into his room. “Mac, can I ask what you were doing in my room, in the dark?” Desi asked, trying to ignore the wave of awkwardness that came over her when she asked that question.

“I was, ahem, fixing your light,” Mac explained lamely.

“You were fixing my light?”

“Yes.”

“But my light wasn’t broken,” Desi said in confusion. Before Mac could respond, Riley came back with the first aid kit. Desi quickly started disinfecting and bandaging the wound, glad for something to do with her hands.

“I noticed it was flickering yesterday, I figured it was some faulty wiring or something. I was almost finished when you came and turned the light on, blowing the bulb,” Mac said, almost sound accusatory.

“Excuse me for thinking I could turn on the light to my own room,” Desi responded.

“I thought you were on watch until 8, I figured I’d be done by then. In and out and you never had to know, Mac admitted.

“Mac, it is 8,” Riley piped up.

“Oh...this place really messes with your sense of time,” Mac said. Riley and Desi exchanged a worried glance over his shoulder.

“All bandaged up,” Desi said to break the silence.

“Mac, you should go talk to Bozer. I told him what happened, but I’m pretty sure in his mind you are up here bleeding out,” Riley said.

“I should help clean up,” Mac said hesitantly.

“We’ve got it,” Desi responded.

“Okay, I will fix your light though,” Mac promised.

“I know,” Desi said with a laugh.

Riley and Desi went into her room to sweep up the shattered pieces of the lightbulb. Riley brought a floor lamp from downstairs and plugged it in so she could still have light.

“We’ve got to do something,” Desi said, sitting on her bed when she’d finished. Riley joined her with a sigh.

“I know. I mean I’m bored and feeling some cabin fever, I can only imagine what someone with a mind like Macs must be feeling,” Riley agreed. “If this goes on for too much longer he will be literally climbing the walls.”

“We have no idea how long this stakeout with last though, it could be another two weeks before Jenkins comes home,” Desi said in frustration. Riley was silent for a few moments before turning to her with a light in her eyes.

“I have an idea.”

***12 hours later***

“Hey Mac,” Riley leaned against the doorframe to Mac’s room. Mac was currently sitting on his bed, surrounded by a dozen paperclips all bent into different shapes.

“Hey Riles, you just get off of watch?”

“Yes, I did, and considering you had the 12-4 am watch, I figured that you would be asleep.”

“I wish I could just sleep away half of the hours in the day, but it’s almost like I’m too restless,” Mac said with a shrug.

“So you aren’t planning on going to sleep?” Riley asked.

“Not at the current moment,” Mac said, raising an eyebrow in question.

“Can you give me a hand with something in the kitchen?” Riley asked, hoping that Mac would just assume she wanted him to help with breakfast.

“Sure,” Mac separated himself from his pile of paperclips and followed Riley. They walked into the kitchen where Riley had laid out, glue, food coloring, and borax on the counter. “What is this?” Mac asked, furrowing his brow as he looked at the ingredients.

“Well, I was bored out of my mind the other day so I was going through the cupboards and I found some borax. Did you ever make homemade slime as a kid?”

“You want to make slime?” Mac asked, his eyebrows raised. 

“You fiddle with paperclips, and I used to play with slime to keep my hands busy as a kid,” Riley said with a shrug. A slow smile spread across Mac’s face as he looked at the giant bowl in the center of the table.

“Let’s do it”

“Really?” Riley said, pleasantly surprised that he seemed so excited.

“Yeah, it sounds fun.”

“Okay, but we have to make enough for everyone,” Riley said.

“If we have to,” Mac joked with a laugh.

They spent the better part of the morning mixing slime and figuring out the perfect ratio of ingredients. Once that had the perfect mixture they separated it out and made a bunch of different colors, mixing those up as well. A couple of mixtures ended up a little gross looking, but in the end they had lots of pretty colored slime to keep their hands busy.

***Later that day***

“Hey, Mac, I need to get some training in, would you be able to spar with me?” Desi asked during a time they were both off watch.

“You sure you don’t want Riley? I think she’s a better fighter than me,” Mac said, obviously startled at being asked.

“Nah, I wanna practice throwing around someone bigger than me,” Desi said.

“Oh, well, in that case, I can help with that,” Mac said.

Desi took him over to where she’d placed a mat on the floor. They went through a lot of maneuvers, most of them ending with Mac on his butt or his back. The one time he got the better of Desi it was only because she’d been laughing because he’d tripped over thin air and taken himself down.

They both had a few more bruises than they’d had earlier in the day, but they’d successfully managed to stay occupied for a while.

***A few hours later***

“Hey, Mac, I’m making dinner and I could really use an extra set of hands,” Bozer said.

“What are you making?”

“Chicken noodle soup, I need a sous chef to chop up all of the vegetables. You think you can manage with that gimp hand?” Bozer asked, gesturing towards Mac’s bandaged palm.

“Oh, I can manage, it’s really only a scratch.”

“Alright, well let’s make sure we don’t add any more scratches.”

“I know how to work a knife, Boze,” Mac said.

“I know, that’s why you are the best sous chef in town. Now get to it,” Bozer said, handing Mac a knife. Mac laughed and started chopping up the vegetables.

Bozer told Mac all about his new idea for a move while they cooked. Mac, as always, listened carefully and offered suggestions to help make certain special effects more realistic. He even promised to help Bozer with the movie as long as he didn’t have to act in it.

When dinner was ready, they all sat at the table with Riley who was on watch. Bozer repeated his movie idea to the girls and they offered their own opinions about it. Their opinions were slightly harsher than Macs and they soon had to turn to other topics of conversation to avoid offending Bozer further.

***Later that night***

Mac was on watch and they all settled on the couch in the living room to watch a movie together. They were all playing with their new slime as they watched.

“Thank you,” Mac said quietly after the movie had finished.

“For what?” Bozer asked.

“I know what you guys were doing all day. You each took a turn distracting me so I wouldn’t get too bored,” Mac said with a grin.

“It was Riley’s idea,” Desi said.

“It was, but it helped us too, I mean we are all going stir-crazy as well,” Riley said.

“Well it certainly helped me, this is the first day in over a week that I haven’t felt like I was climbing the walls,” Mac said.

“Didn’t I tell you,” Bozer said to Riley and Desi with a grin. “I was pretty sure that if this kept on you would’ve found a way to literally climb up the walls.”

“You’re probably right,” Mac conceded with a smile. “Thank you guys, I really do appreciate it.”

“Just wait until you see what we’ve got planned for tomorrow,” Riley said.

“I look forward to it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I am determined to stave off the boredom of isolation by writing as much fanfic as possible. So if you have requests or prompts please send them in to me!!!
> 
> Here's a link to a post on my tumblr of all of the fandoms I'm down to write a fic for  
> https://macspaperclips.tumblr.com/post/613069342535565312
> 
> "Solitude is creativity's best friend, and solitude is refreshment for our souls."  
> ~Naomi Judd


End file.
